Microsoft Surface Pro review – Windows 8 Tablets

Microsoft’s Surface tablet powered by Windows 8 Pro will be priced from $899, the company said. Microsoft will sell the Microsoft Surface Pro version of Surface from January. Microsoft reduced the price of its Microsoft Surface Pro tablet this weekend by $ 100, a few days after revealing that it has spent more money on marketing the in-house tablet than it has generated in revenue.

The reductions, which were first reported by The Verge, cuts the price of Microsoft’s 64GB and 128GB tablets to $ 799 and $ 899, respectively. The discounts come three weeks after Microsoft cut the price of its Surface RT tablets by 30 percent.The Pro version of Surface with a keyboard cover and the popular Office suite of software will however cost more.

The current version of Surface runs on the slimmed down Windows RT operating system. It runs only specially designed applications from Microsoft and others sold through the company’s online store. But the Pro version of Surface can also run regular Windows applications written for desktops and laptops.

The Microsoft Surface Pro version of Surface features Intel’s Core i5 processor and the $899 model will come with 64 gigabytes of memory, while the $999 version has 128 GB of memory. (With Agency Inputs)

Even though Microsoft revealed its revenue from the Microsoft Surface Pro tablets, it did not release the number of units sold or specify the individual revenue from either the Surface RT or the Surface Pro. In March, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft likely sold around 1.5 million Microsoft Surface Pro tablets to date. Though 1 million of those sales were for the RT version, that number was about half of what Microsoft initially expected, according to Bloomberg.

Sales of Microsoft Surface ProRT tablets, which debuted last October, have been seen as tepid. The tech titan revealed on Tuesday that it hasearned $853 million in revenue from its Surface tablets since their debut last fall. However, that is less than the $900 million the company had to pay for Surface RT inventory adjustments and also less than the $898 million Microsoft paid for Windows 8 and Surface advertising.

The Surface has a beautiful screen with a high resolution. However, as a default the font resolution is a little small for my taste for reading and navigating with my finger. It is nice that the surface has a touch screen, which is very useful when using the Windows Metro Interface. The touch screen also allows for the use of a stylus.

Microsoft Surface Pro comes with a stylus but don’t loose it as it doesn’t have had a loop or hole (like the old Pocket PC’s) in the tablet into which to store. Basically the Surface Pro has a ridge so that it magnetically snaps on to the charging port of the surface for storage when you are not using it. I don’t have to tell you that it is not secure enough for transporting as it can be easily brushed off. The other oversight is where do you put the stylus when you are charging the surface (the charger and the stylus use the same port)? It feels like the stylus was an after thought.

I suppose the stylus is a great accessory for those who need to write or draw, but I think the Type key cover would have been a more useful item to include with the Surface than the stylus.

The Type keypad accessory is a must have in my opinion without it you need to enable Windows keypad (similar to using a graphics tablet with prior versions of Windows (not convenient in my opinion). In comparing the Surface virtual keyboard to the iPad, the iPad does a better job of integrating a touch/ on screen keyboard, if you ask me.

Do you need a keyboard? Yes, in my view, the strength of the Surface Pro is that it is a device like no other. It is functional as a desktop, laptop, cloud-book and tablet.